Terminator 2 Remastering for DVD

Richard Buskin talks with creative producer Van Ling and sound mixer Gary Rydstrom about their work on the new DVD release of James Cameron’s special effects classic, offering three different cuts of the movie which are each in three different sound formats.

irst there was Terminator 2: Judgement Day, director sound and footage in order to resume his aforementioned James Cameron’s 1991 sequel to 1984’s Termina- roles and supervise its multi-dimensional transfer to disc. tor, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the genial Richard Buskin: How long has this DVD remaster been cyborg who travels from the future to help save the on the drawing board? human race. Then there was the 1993 Special Van Ling: Artisan Entertainment (the film’s rights holders) EFdition laser disc version of this special effects extravagan- and I had been talking about it for years, but, in terms of za, boasting previously cut scenes and a bevy of supple- the technology, we were waiting until DVD caught up with mental material. And now... Yes, it’s time for the DVD, what we wanted to do. That meant being able to do multi- boasting not only the original theatrical and Special Edition story, with the seamless branching of several different versions, but also a third version with five more minutes of versions. Well, about 18 months ago we started trying to previously excised footage, plus an assortment of menus, a figure out how to do that – a couple of films stood as narrative track... and three parallel soundtracks: Dolby 2.0, examples, but not to the extent that we required. Dolby 5.1 EX and DTS ES. RB: Gary, did your experience with the laser disc That’s a lot of info to pack onto one disc, and the man version pave the way any for this DVD release? charged with the mission of making it all fit was the Gary Rydstrom: In effect, the Terminator 2 laser disc DVD’s Creative Producer, Van Ling. Indeed, Ling was the was version 1.0 of the DVD. It was a pretty detailed Visual Effects Coordinator and Creative Adviser to James process even back then, and if you compare the two it’s Cameron on the original film, as well as producer of the clear that what we did on laser disc seven years ago was Special Edition for which he oversaw the insertion of pre- an attempt before DVD existed to go for that same feel. viously cut segments, while writing and directing all of It’s kind of nice that we were able to translate that, and at the supplemental material. This time around, therefore, he the same time I also wanted to do more with it. In other came armed with an intimate knowledge of the film’s words, for the people who hadn’t seen the laser disc this

54 would be a revelation, while for those who had, I wanted sound that was on the previous version. In the meantime, to provide more. Lightstorm had sent one of their representatives, Mike RB: As far as the audio goes how did you bring the Trainotti, to monitor mix. He has a DTS DVD player, and pieces together? as we were now going to have Dolby Surround EX and GR: Well there was a kind of jigsaw-like complexity to Dolby 2.0, he said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could get this project in terms of providing the sound. It was on DTS as well?’ mag film originally, so we put everything into ProTools. Of Saving Private Ryan was just coming out and you could course, the fun part of the disc is in the multiple versions get it in either version [DTS and Dolby surround], so I of the cut of the film, and, without playing the entire took his suggestion to heart and said, ‘Well, how can we visuals of each of the three cuts, we had to treat things do that? It would be neat if we could have both versions!’ almost like a video game just to make sure that we could Initially, Artisan said, ‘No, there’s not going to be enough get in and out. We had to do three different-length room. We can’t do that,’ and in general that was true. I versions of the mix, and because of the editorial com- mean, Private Ryan had to be sold as two separate inven- plexities which that engendered we put everything on tories, and yes that movie was three hours long, but here ProTools. we were talking about three versions of a film on the Out of that, all sorts of problems arose. For one thing, same disc, so we figured there was no way it was going to when a film has been mastered for DVD it’s no longer – at fit. However, I went and asked the authoring house least, in this case – in the standard 1000-foot reels that we WAMO [Warner Advanced Media Organization], ‘Can had done the original mix to. It was now in three big you run the numbers for me? Tell me if it’s possible,’ and chunks, three big sections, so there was a lot of internal they went back and looked at it and ran the numbers and cutting together of reels when the video master was said, ‘You know what? It is possible to have a Dolby 5.1 made for this DVD and we had to make sure that every- EX track, a 2.0 and a DTS ES track.’ thing sync’d up to that. However, our source material was The result was that we managed to put both the DTS never done in that way, so we had to build it up to match and the Dolby onto the same disc without sacrificing the new master cut of the DVD, all the while figuring out picture quality for all three versions of the film. However, the sync – sometimes mathematically and sometimes just the trade-off was that it limited me to making my menus phasing it in to make it work. as minimal as possible. It prevented me from including You see, on any video transfer there’s always some sort some other commentary-type tracks or sub-title tracks – I of guide track, so you can phase into sync with the guide had some very complex sub-title tracks in mind, similar to track relatively easily. Still, there are always discrepancies, and over the course of time and the complications of different formats one of our main jobs was to keep an eye on sync – to make sure we built the movie back up in proper sync – as well as taking care of the issue of having to go off into these second and third cuts which have different transitions into the cut moments and new scenes. It’s one of those fun problems and a real mind- bender in ways that it’s hard to even imagine. RB: Van, was it a challenge to fit three different films each Dolby and DTS-encoded onto the one disc? VL: When we originally started, we were just going to take the six-track mix that we had of the theatrical release, and then combine that with the six-track that we had created for the Special Edition segments. We’d have to do that as a complete stream for each of the versions of the film, but then at a certain point we said, ‘We know that we need to do not only a 5.1 mix of each version, but we also need to do a 2.0’, because Lightstorm wanted to have a distinct Dolby Pro Logic version as opposed to letting the player do a bad job of it. So, we knew we had to do those two mixes, and then, at yet another point, it was decided that, (since this was the summer of Phantom and Haunting and so on), why not also look at remixing it in Dolby Surround EX? In other words, give a centre-rear channel. Once we had decided to do that, it was a matter of having to go back to the stems and get the material. Gary Rydstrom assured us that we could do that, and conse- quently I think this was one of the first catalogue films to have its sound remixed in EX. Artisan was happy about I’ll be back: Years after doing the Special Edition, Gary that. You know, here’s something new, not just the great Rydstrom got the call to remaster the DVD version.

55 what is currently on the DVD for Men things that I was looking at doing in Black but even more complex, and I “We had a lot of was updating how we used the had to drop all of those. I weighed the surrounds on the first film; making options and thought, ‘You know what, I fun with the things a little more dramatic by bet people would rather have DTS and panning sounds through the Dolby on the same disc than another freeway chase surrounds, including the EX sub-title track’, so that’s what I went channels. That was one of my main with. involving the goals on this semi-remix. RB: So can we look forward to yet One scene where we probably another Terminator 2 release? helicopter… we used more of the EX channel than in VL: I hope not. You know, we do try any other is the one in which the to have some truth in advertising made good use of Terminator and Sarah are stuck in an when we call it the ‘ultimate version’. elevator and T1000 is sticking his Anyway, once the DTS and Dolby the surrounds for blades into the elevator’s ceiling. option became a factor, I then needed There was a fairly strong use of to make all of my menus really short, surround in the first instance, but this although I did manage to keep them that” time there was also more use of EX pretty active. We also included a there. We also had a lot of fun with mono commentary track from the laser disc, but, since the freeway chase involving the helicopter, which has that disc only had the Special Edition version of the film, always been one of my favourite moments – we made what we needed to do was re-edit the commentary so good use of the surrounds for that. that it ran under all three versions. After all, if we were Of course, there’s a temptation to overdo things, but going to include it under one of them, it would still take not every movie – or every moment – wants to be a the same amount of space under the other ones because surround sound demo. It depends on the moment, it of the way that the DVD format works. depends on the movie. The limitation that we put on this RB: Given all the debate about the relative merits of project was that we didn’t add any new material. It was Dolby versus DTS, it’s probably a good exercise for the just a case of taking the mix as it was originally done, consumer to compare the two on the one disc, especial- doing a little bit of re-balancing and re-panning through ly as those formats are now more comparable in terms the surrounds, and also adding sub-woofer information. of bit rates. That was about it. We wanted to be as true as possible to VL: Providing a fair basis of comparison was important the original mix. I mean, we were given a free hand on to me, and it’s one of the few releases to have that, this project, with the caveat from James Cameron to stay

certainly for a movie of this size and complexity.” true to our original choices, so that’s what we did. Still, I RB: Did going with Dolby and DTS complicate your job guess it’s a fine line. When presented with a mix that I’d any, Gary? done nine years ago, it was tempting in some cases to GR: It’s really the same mix with no difference between either undo a mistake or do a little bit of re-balancing in the two release formats on the DVD. We were just making line with my own taste and also for the sake of home a six-channel mix – or, in this case actually, an EX- theatre. I ended up doing that a little bit – I wish I could encoded six-channel mix – that could be mastered in remix every movie for home theatre, because as much as both Dolby with EX and DTS with ES. It was therefore it emulates theatres, it’s still a different venue and so it’s transparent to us. We just wanted to do something new, nice to mix it for that. to play a little bit with the surrounds. One of the major AT

56